Jura 2025: Here We Go Again

My 10th (I think?) trip to Jura for the best (I think!) race in the world.

Some pretty dreary conditions this year – the long spell of good weather had broken just in time to provide the course with 24 hours of heavy rain and Friday night was spent running between rare spots of shelter in between particularly strong deluges.

A few of us sat quietly at the back of the village hall for the evening while the marhsals got their briefing – silence a small price to pay for staying dry. As Tom told the marshals what was what, Jenn was kept busy tending to the plights of the surprising number of runners that forgot or broke parts of their tents – truly an angel of mercy.

The weather hadn’t improved much by Saturday; still raining and still windy, at least it wasn’t cold.

The bog at the start seemed a lot worse than usual but Roddy reckoned it’s always that terrible. The scree was definitely slipper.

I was part of a group with Leyre that badly fumbled the (poor visibility) CP 1 > CP 2 run, adding a couple of miles and fair bit of time to the day. As Ally Beavan correctly remarked later on: “Nav’s easy, you just have to do it.” Unfortunately, by the time my brain kicked in to gear the damage was done. To quote Leyre that evening – “James, I don’t think we did a good job today.” Quite.

My expectations had never been particularly high for this race but after the early debacle it was just a case of plodding round to the finish. Always a boost to meet some friendly Westies at the top of each Pap.

There were some excellent performances on the day – Ella P & Ellen in the top-10 and Kal smashing a massive 50min PB being particularly notable. Poor Alwyn, he can’t tie his shoe-laces so ran from the top of Corra Bheinn to the finish in his socks.

Special mention has to go to JD who, along with Ian Holmes, sacrificed his race to assist a badly injured runner of the hill – chapeau!

As ever, Jenn and Tom’s organisation was tip-top and all the Westies did the club proud on & off the hill.